


Eyes Always Open

by Arrynae9



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Drabble, M/M, and im posting it anyway because yknow what i kinda like it, and it's like a hundred goddamn words, but this goddamn idea wouldnt get outta my head, i know i should be working on TGA and i SWEAR the next chap is coming tomorrow ok i promise, only rated T for swearing guys no worries, so I wrote it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-06
Updated: 2016-12-06
Packaged: 2018-09-06 22:08:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8771212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Arrynae9/pseuds/Arrynae9
Summary: Neil would never understand the stories Nicky told him - of hiding under the covers as a child, squeezing your eyes shut until the monsters went away.Or, Neil has seen some shit, but he thinks it might have been worth it.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Listen I swear TGA is going to be updated tomorrow I SWEAR (I'm so sorry...)  
> BUT. This idea popped into my head at about midnight (forty minutes ago) so I spent about twenty minutes writing it, ten editing it, and then another ten debating whether or not to even bother posting it because it is no more than a drabble. But alas, here we are.  
> So, please enjoy my super short nonsense.

Neil would never understand the stories Nicky told him - of hiding under the covers as a child, squeezing your eyes shut until the monsters went away.  
Neil's monsters wouldn't leave because he closed his eyes. He couldn't remember ever thinking that they would. It was a foreign concept to him, this inability to watch, to observe, to calculate all possible outcomes of a situation and ultimately decide the best course of action to take in response.  
Years ago, when Neil was alone and tired and hollow from leaving his soul deep in the sand with his mother's bones, that response would have been to run. Run, survive, be whoever you must, but not yourself.  
But that hadn't been his chosen course, not lately. Not since Andrew and the Foxes and a life he hadn't known he could have. Neil had believed, just for a moment, that it was over. That he was safe.  
He had been naive.  
  
Nathaniel kept his eyes open wide when the gun pressed to his forehead began to bruise. He kept them open when Romero Malcolm spat on his clothes, teeth bared and voice promising revenge, revenge for his boss, for his sister.  
Neil Josten would have replied to that voice. Would have said something about how Lola Malcolm was a maniac whose only real accomplishment was fucking the Butcher of Baltimore.  
Neil Josten would have died for that comment.  
Nathaniel Wesninski kept his eyes open, and his mouth shut.  
  
When they came for them, as Nathaniel had doubted and Neil had always known they would, it was Andrew's face that they sought from the crowd. The other Foxes would have been forbidden to come along to an FBI rescue, but Neil knew nothing in the world could stop Andrew when he was determined.  
(Nothing in the world, Neil thought, except the word 'no'.)  
Andrew was in front of them in an instant, face blank as always but raw emotion showing in the tightness of his jaw, the squaring of his shoulders, the brief openness in his eyes akin to a fresh and gaping wound.  
(Nathaniel couldn't read the signs, but Neil could - had studied them in the dark with quiet conversations and careful fingers on bruised skin.)  
"Neil," Andrew said, and Nathaniel slipped back into a memory.  
"Andrew," Neil replied, and the world stopped spinning.  
  
Neil would never understand Nicky's stories - would never be able to just close his eyes against his horrors and his monsters. But that was okay. Nathaniel could witness the monsters - nowadays, Neil had much better things to see.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, the use of 'they' is intentional. In my mind, Neil was gone while Nathaniel lived through Romero, and then for a moment, between the FBI coming in and Andrew saying his name, it's both Nathaniel and Neil conscious at once, and then Nathaniel is pushed back and Neil becomes the front focus again.


End file.
